Keith Bachman trolled Dead Horse Lake in his pontoon boat on February 5!
George Abernathy
On February 5 seven members and I drove two hours up to Cottonwood and fished Dead Horse Lake. While I was fishing a cove where the stream inlet is located, someone asked me what I was using to catch trout. At that moment, I had switched rods and was using an unsuccessful dry fly. The trout wouldn’t even look at it, let alone hit it. After several attempts, I switched back to a Copper John and a Chironomid Pupa as a dropper which are two of my “go to flies” when I fish a lake with an indicator. I caught 95 percent of the trout with the Chironomid. Twice upon hooking and landing trout, I thought I hooked into holder-overs (trout that had a year to grow and become wilder) because of the fight they gave, only to find out that after I missed their hits, I had snagged them on the side of their body. Dan Rheinauer got into the trout all day by using a sinking tip line and trolling primarily with non-bead head green and brown wooly burgers and he also caught one bass. Keith Bachman also got into trout all day long while trolling different wooly burgers from his pontoon boat. It’s powered by a trolling motor and is capable of throwing out a wake.
I think in all, everyone had a great time. Some of the guys left early so I didn’t get a chance to find out how they did, but I’m sure they had some stories to tell as well. When the rest of us were pulling our boats out of the water around 3:15 p.m., the trout started rising all over the lake which truly had me motivated to get back into the water and break out the dry flies. No matter how many hours I spend on a lake, it’s difficult for me to pack up when trout start gulping (coming to the surface eating surface bugs). Next time, dinner and the wife will have to wait a little longer!
By the time this story is published, we will have done another overnight trip to Silver Creek (Pine Top area). We were up there a few months prior and really got into the hogs. These are big trout; hogs as I like to refer to them, were caught all day long. After hearing about our prior success, an abundance of generated enthusiasm was strong enough for me to arrange another overnighter.
Also, two additional two to four hour local fly fishing trips were made in February. Several members went to Kiwanis Lake in Tempe and a few went to the Fingerling Lake in Ironwood. There’s not a lot to say about either trip, because there weren’t a lot of fish caught. I guess that’s why they called it fishing.
Bragging may not bring happiness, but no man having caught a large fish goes home through an alley. ~Author unknown